


Leave Us Unspoken and Quiet in Our Home

by challengeaccepted



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gore, M/M, Madness, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:37:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/challengeaccepted/pseuds/challengeaccepted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is caught. Uther is determined to teach Arthur a lesson on traitors. No one comes out the other side unchanged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave Us Unspoken and Quiet in Our Home

**Author's Note:**

> *shrugs*
> 
> Thank you to those who beta'd and encourage.
> 
> Crossposted at: http://challengeaccept.livejournal.com/3234.html

Merlin was a bigger idiot then Arthur ever gave him credit for.

In the end it wasn’t something spectacular, something life saving (an option Arthur was beginning to realize had come up more often then he’d thought), no, he was simply caught by a scullery maid in the laundry room idly playing with the bubbles in the tub.

Only the tub was on the ground and the water was in the air, the bubbles merrily floating on top and Merlin’s eyes glowed with yellow fire.

The time after that blurs in his memory, it is an impression of shapes and sounds and smells, his father’s roaring mouth, split open like a wet, ripe melon, the rot and mold of the dungeons and the clap of steel worked into the shape of hands closing around skinny wrists.

“To think that there was one so close to the crown. This cannot be stood for,” his father turns to look out the heavily draped window, nudging them aside with the back of his gloved hand. The council room is quiet today, it is only them here, discussing the fate of a sorcerer, naming treason. “He was in your rooms, day after day. He could have done as he wished with you at any time.

“There are others out there, Arthur. If they are not found through him, I fear for the lengths I must go through to ferret them from their holes.”

The suggestion was implicit and chilled Arthur’s bones; the kingdom had survived and flourished in the aftermath of one purge, but a second, conducted with a heavy hand and without grace would leave it a smoking heap. He trusts his father to act with care on any other count, but magic, and betrayal make him relentless and excessive in his cruelty, passionate hatred and eyes that see treachery in every corner. The pyres themselves could light from the chance of his gaze, alone.

“I am inclined to believe he was working alone,” Arthur starts off in reasonable tones. “Considering the nature of his employment--”

Uther snorts.

“Clearly he was working with the snakes who attempted your life. A clever enough farce, but a farce nonetheless.”

Arthur keeps his face still, even addressing his father’s back.

“Perhaps--”

Uther whirls, eyes narrowed.

“I am aware, Arthur, that the boy was close to you, but you must remember that you are the _prince_ of Camelot. To see betrayal under your own eyes and then to dismiss it is a folly a future king cannot afford.” There’s heat in his gaze; he is more certain of himself then Arthur ever has been, though Arthur plays a good game at it. He envies it at times and at others he wants to pound and temper it from his own soul. Uther’s eyes narrow. “Better, then, if we can salvage something from the midst of this ugliness.”

He comes towards Arthur, lays a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“You will accompany me to the dungeons and together we will wring the truth from him. Perhaps then you will not be so quick to believe greatness from those whose very birth bars them from ever possessing it.”

Arthur closes his eyes and grits his teeth and ignores as his world threatens to rock on its axis.

“Then we will question him and tomorrow he will be put to the block?”

“Not quite,” Uther replies and ah, the pyre, then.

“He will be tortured until he gives up what he knows and then he will be put to the stake.”

“ _What_ ,” Arthur hisses, eyes gone wide as he jerks out from under his father’s hand. He’d laughed once at the idea of Merlin and magic. He sees no reason to laugh, now. He cannot explain it away with frogs in a strangers throat and a pile of strangely identical magical implements and oh, the things that Arthur’s learning, too late, too late. The marked candles burn merrily down in their sconces. “Father, is that really--”

Uther levels him with a glance.

“It’s an important lesson that a king must be taught, Arthur and I think it’s high past time you were schooled in it. You are not a child to be coddled any longer.” His hand anchors tighter despite Arthur’s twisting, who subsides, fuming. “I’m sorry you had to learn it this way, I know that you believed the boy to be close to you in return, but in the end you will learn the lesson far better for his betrayal.”

No eloquence comes to Arthur in response. He would not be less prepared to reply if Uther had slapped him.

“Father,” he hisses, an exhale of sound. Uther watches him expectantly, inordinately calm, unflappable and this is _Merlin_ he’s talking about. Merlin, who can barely string his words together, who manages to trip over nothing short of his feet just walking across the room, whose grin is eager to wash over him, brightening the blue of his eyes to the color of sun on water.

“Tomorrow, then,” he says, voice warped in his ears. He needs to buy time, time for his plans to mature. “Let him rot in the dungeon for a night. Perhaps he’ll be more amenable to the idea after his time there.”

Uther’s already shaking his head and Arthur forces himself to take a deep breath.

“No, better his position is made clear. I would ferret these traitors out as quickly as possible.” Uther replies. “We’ll fetch one of the servants and have the guards make ready.” His father’s already turning away, dismissing Arthur’s concerns from his mind, preparing, readying to-

“No.” Arthur’s voice echoes against the stone, final. Uther pauses and he looks back, brow arched high.

“No?”

“No,” Arthur repeats, quieter, now. “Father, you must understand-”

Uther’s jaw clenches.

“I _understand_ perfectly well, Arthur,” he snaps, temper flaring. It hadn’t been obvious earlier, but there’s a fine tremor running through Uther’s limbs; fury barely checked and that ugly, familiar wildness lending unnatural heat to his gaze; he lives for this and never before has Arthur felt that truth so acutely. ““You’ll learn to be a _king_ , son. The names and faces of every accomplice he holds in his treasonous little heart will be beaten from his flesh.”

“Father,” Arthur’s voice comes in a raw whisper. He fancies, a bit dreamily, that he can see the blood pounding through his eyes. Today, it seems, is determined to be one of those days where he is tossed about like the royal puppet instead of a prince. Uther stands next to him, lays a hand on his cheek and it’s deathly cold through the leather.

“You will be great one day, my son, but not until you put these childish fancies from you. A betrayal is unforgivable to a king when his subject’s strength is only as great as their loyalty to him. We will finish this together, and you will sleep better for it.”

The knights his father summons to his side grip him gently when they march behind the inky flash of Uther’s back.

\---

Merlin is not a mess of bruises and cuts as Arthur expects when he sees him. He’s strung up, body stretched past the point of comfort, but with defiance snapping sharp in every line and angle of his body. His cheeks are swollen a dusky purple, but that seems to be the extent of the damage wrecked upon him.

Never before has Arthur so shamelessly wanted to run from something in his entire life; the sight of Merlin’s sharp vigor and strong spirit sets him to sweating.

 _Make it easy on yourself,_ he pleads with him silently, desperation in the clench of his jaw. _Give him what he wants_. His father will force him to watch and three long hours until midnight stretch their gnarled hands into eternity.

Beside him, in the increasingly surreal realm of reality, Uther pulls a small vial from out of the folds of his tunic.

“A potion, one that Gaius gave me long ago, made to stopper the sorcerer’s magic inside of himself where it can do no harm,” he explains, unprompted, as if Arthur might be concerned about Merlin’s... ability.

As he speaks one of the guards takes it from him and wraps a gloved hand around Merlin’s jaw, squeezing his cheeks, giving explanation to his bruised flesh. Merlin opens his mouth mulishly, glowering hotly as the guard tips it down his throat. He lets go and Merlin catches his breath.

“I told you I’d just take the damn thing,” he gasps, shaking himself. He glances up at Uther and Arthur, clearly confused. He shifts. “I thought I was to be executed at dawn,” he rasps. Arthur stares at his lips. They are as red and as wet as a wound.

Uther takes his time crossing to him, the barred iron gate slamming shut behind he and his son. The toes of Uther’s boots stop just short of Merlin’s dirty knees.

He backhands Merlin across the face, hard, no maiden’s blow. Merlin’s head whips to the side and he spits out a generous splattering of blood.

“You would do well to remember I am still the king, _sorcerer_ and defer to me as such. Our business here is certainly not up for your discussion or quarries.”

Merlin cringes, blood and spit trickling down the side of his face.

“Doesn’t seem much point in that if you’re going to kill me either way, _your highness_ ,” he cheerfully spits out the word like there’s nothing to his life, nothing to the danger he’s in.

“ _Merlin_ ,” Arthur snaps, horrified. Uther gives him a warning glance, then turns back to Merlin, carefully fitting his hands into a fist about a great chunk of Merlin’s dark hair.

“It is the time between now and then that you need concern yourself with, sorcerer,” Uther yanks his head back, exposing the long pale line of his throat. Merlin’s grunt is bit back.

“You’re a bully, your highness, I won’t cower before that,” he replies, strained. Arthur is reminded of their meeting, of his cheeky wit and his refusal to back down even then, it makes him want to laugh, but it’s an ugly feeling curled in the pit of his gut, heavy and sick.

“Alright, then,” Uther says and steps back. He nods to the guard who comes forward to take his place. He withdraws his knife and sets it beneath Merlin’s chin, tilting his head back and up, a parody of a haughty courtier. Uther looks to his son, giving him a subtle nod. Arthur’s teeth clench and he speaks through their wall.

“Tell us,” Arthur starts and has to falter to swallow, throat dry. “Tell us the names of your accomplices.”

“I don’t have any,” Merlin replies, lips twisted in a mulish line. With the finality of his unquestionable guilt he seems to have given up even the semblance of deference.

“Answer me, Merlin,” Arthur all but growls, eyes lit with internal fever. Merlin pales and his eyes cast to the side as his jaw clenches. His cheek is already swelling red where Uther’s added to the bruises there.

Arthur’s startled by the weight of a hand on his shoulder. Uther’s come up behind him, shaking his head.

“No,” he says calmly. He eyes Merlin with poison distaste. “This is not the way to yield results. They need a heavier hand.” He nods again to the guard.

The knife flips and is dragged down, down the pale expanse of his chest, parting a red line. It skitters against his breastbone, knocked askew and scraping. Merlin hisses. The knife makes another pass, quick and thoughtless, crisscrossing the other, just beneath the muscles of his chest. At the first drop of red Arthur pulls something in his neck and across his back from the simultaneous action of bursting forward and holding himself back. His hands quiver where they’re clenched at his sides.

“Just answer the question, Merlin,” he grits out. Merlin cringes and tries to twist away but the chains hold fast.

“I can’t because there isn’t an answer,” he says hotly, eyes flashing. He’s speaking mostly to Arthur’s father who’s moving towards him. Arthur’s hand aches to reach out and catch him, drag him back and away. “There’s no one. No one but me and I know that’s not going to satisfy you so whatever you’re going to do just get it over with so I can die in peace.” He doesn’t sound as if he actually believes he will die of this.

Uther’s hand curls around the hilt of the knife with the tip still caught in Merlin’s skin. They guard’s hand unfurls beneath his and he steps down.

“You still don’t understand your position here,” Uther says. He guides it into the furrow between his ribs, the line he follows marked by a thin scratch in the vulnerable flesh. “And you play me a fool with your lies.” He _leans_ and Merlin finally makes a noise, a choked off sound that ends in a shout. His eyes snap to Arthur’s, panic only just barely hidden. The knife sweeps along the contours of his body, a six inch gash that eats a full half of the flat of the knife.

Uther, without looking behind him, gestures for Arthur to come closer and Arthur’s vision swims as he finally, finally understands what’s expected of him. His father means not simply for him to stand and watch this atrocity, he expects him to _participate_ , to cut into his friend’s flesh with him like they’ve together sliced roast and ham and dead things at feasts.

But Merlin is not dead flesh and with the realization comes the urge to balk, to scream, to throw his father off of Merlin’s sweaty pale form, to clean the red away and hide him where no one can ever lay eyes on him, again.

Another vulnerable hollow drains red into Merlin’s body, mirror to the first. The uninterrupted black of Uther’s gloves smearing rust across Merlin’s chest is obscene. These cuts are not thin lines, they gape open and the blood that runs from them is thick. When ( _not if_ ) the flesh heals they will raise thick, knotted scars and pull, nagging whenever Merlin raises his arms above his head. As they are now, they bleed and distress Merlin until his lungs heave in their breath.

Before he’s registered what he’s doing Arthur’s crossed the room and his hand has shot out to curl viciously around the offending leather of his father’s gloves. For a beat he holds it there, too tight, too invested and then his hand relaxes slowly and he draws away, staring into his father’s steady gaze.

Uther turns the knife around and holds it out to him. Arthur stares at it dumbly. Merlin pants where he hangs.

Uther is silent over the glint of the knife for a long moment. When it’s clear Arthur will make no further move he flips it back around. His hands clamp tight around the hilt, leather creaking as he darts it in once more, opening a line from where Merlin’s left shoulder is bunched up against his neck, arching towards the first cut, traveling all the way across his chest. His carving is artful in its precision and it is becoming increasingly clearer that his father is not a new hand at this. The thought floods sickness into Arthur’s limbs, his own horror buffeting at him again and again. There’s a a life-time of cruelty being spelled out in flesh and blood before his eyes. There were hundreds before this day and nothing internal will still his father’s hand if more are set before him and his blade. His father built his kingdom on bone and ash never before has Arthur has felt it so acutely as he does today, through the haze of his heartbeat pounding through his ears.

Merlin hisses; his sweat runs into the wound, clearly stinging. He bites his lip. His eyes flash once, a brilliant blue, before they’re turned downward as his head sags, chin to chest.

The shape and uniformity, the impartial geometry of his father’s carvings reflect his indifference. He doesn’t know Merlin, he never bothered beyond the half-tolerant amusement of his being Arthur’s half-simple servant who sometimes managed to bungle his way to saving his son’s life. Merlin doesn’t deserve _this_ , for his troubles, surrounded and trapped, cornered by blades and chains and men who do not know what it is to see Merlin live.

There is no doubt that Merlin, for all his bravado, is afraid of those hands, of those blades and of their cruelty when he flinches almost imperceptibly at their every twitch. His fear is as alive as the rest of him, and if these men learn of Merlin through his pain it will be undeserved and the reward disproportionate to the hatred in his father’s eyes and the boredom of everyday drudgery writ large across his guard’s face.

An odd certainty is bubbling up in Arthur’s chest and there’s a ringing in his ears growing with each over-loud beat of his heart. Uther draws another line, low on Merlin’s belly, deep and splitting and it’s enough, enough. Something clicks into place inside of him, _shifts_ somewhere alien and hollow.

“Let him down.” Arthur’s voice is barely above a whisper, but there’s little else beyond the sound of Merlin’s heavy breathing to steal away the sound. Uther gives him a considering look. At a nod from him, the guard lifts Merlin’s wrists from where the chain of his cuffs are dangling from the hook. He steps back to his innocuous corner of the cell and Merlin crashes to his knees with a grunt, all the air knocked out of him. There’s a flush to his skin now, blood rushing hard back through his veins and he’s whimpering and wrenching and draining freely in the hold Arthur’s father has on him as the sudden release coaxes forth a fresh stream from his wounds. It drips and joins the puddle spreading beneath him. Arthur’s hand, his own flesh, betrayal and obedience both, reaches out and clamps hard over Merlin’s arm, stilling his jerks. There’s a sense of timelessness to the moment where prince and sorcerer look at each other, Merlin sweating and in pain and Arthur gone far away.

He kneels beside Merlin in the dirt and scattered stones, Merlin watching warily, a wildness in his eyes and the ruddy red of his cheeks. Arthur’s hand drifts down over the unblemished skin of his arm, takes the delicate lines of his fingers in his own; his right hand.

It’s almost pathetic how easy the thin bone snaps, a stubborn twig, but a twig nonetheless. Merlin grunts, eyes wide and horrified as he tries to jerk away. Arthur’s other hand snaps closed tight over his wrist, just above where the metal of the cuffs chafe against his skin. Uther’s grip curls tighter around his shoulders. Arthur moves on to the next.

“What are you doing, Arthur, Arthur, stop, no--” he breaks off into another grunt as Arthur breaks the next. Merlin breathes heavily for a moment, tongue too sluggish to continue, but he tries when Arthur simply shifts again, taking his middle finger. “Arthur, please.” It yields as easily as the other two. Arthur can feel the result reverberate under his skin, warping into wrongness, forming a new, useless mountain where once there was a meticulously crafted mechanical digit. He has seen it before in other wounds; the site will swell, puffy and thick with fluid, pink until the blood goes clotted and rotten and bruises purple. There is little difference, save that Merlin is not a knight but an old, dear friend.

The skin tears on the last with the force Arthur puts into wrenching it backwards. Merlin shrieks, high and inhuman with the voice of a great mountain cat or perhaps the cursed creature Arthur had wounded all those years ago, when time and whimsy were still on their sides.

“Names,” a voice intones from a great distance, unfamiliar and surreal. It never quite sinks in that it is his own.

“There’s no one,” Merlin shouts, exploding outwards, free in the fetid air between them. His eyes are squeezed shut tight. There’s a sprinkle of wetness clumping his lashes into dark spikes and it contrasts beautifully with the again pale skin of his face. It seems a shade lighter then it was before. A shudder runs through him, full body and he tugs against the grip Arthur has on him, little jerks like he can’t help himself. “No one, damn you.” The last is a sob, repeated on a whisper. Arthur’s hand _squeezes_ over Merlin’s, a mockery of a caress. His arm spasm in pain and he gasps, whimpering as his dislocated bones grind together, unattached from their sockets. Arthur can feel his ring finger shift and threaten to break through the skin. Merlin chokes; “Stop, stop stop,” reflexive.

“No,” Arthur says, a dull mockery of his earlier proclamation. Merlin whines.

Uther pats Merlin on the head, like he’s a child at his knee. Arthur’s grip spasms around Merlin’s fingers, vision going briefly red. Merlin grunts out his nose.

“There’s no quarter for your kind, creature,” Uther’s saying, somewhere above their heads, speaking through to the depths of a lake, residing in another world far from Merlin and Arthur. They are here and now, deep in the murk, twined together on their knees in the midst of a sleeping specter.

“Arthur,” Merlin breathes, pain coloring the edges of his voice. Arthur is silent. Merlin goes sickly gray and chokes on a sob and Arthur pulls away, fingers lingering against damaged flesh. Merlin immediately curls himself around the injured limb, cradling it in his other hand carefully.

Arthur watches him, his head bowed over his cuffed hands in a parody of catholic prayer, as he slips from his boot the thin, shining line of his own hunting knife. It’s a beautiful blade, with a hooked tip, and an edge of wicked serration that melds into the thin, smooth blade. It’s nestled in a leather-wrapped hilt that’s long worn into the precise shape of Arthur’s hand. His eyes sweep over Merlin’s body, and he tries to imagine it buried there, tucked up into his flesh as if it has found a new sheath. He cannot fit them together inside, where Merlin’s still laughing and standing in the sun, eyes open in joy and spreading his arms to embrace the day.

It’s with a sense of curious fascination that he hooks it into the vulnerable hollow beneath Merlin’s collar bone, pushing until his thin skin gives and the flesh beneath parts and makes way. He tilts his wrist up and down, wiggling it until the gutting tip hooks under bone, nestling, then tugs on it as he stands and _pulls_ , forcing Merlin to scrabble to his feet, face twisted into a sickly snarl. His bound hands come up between them, pushing ineffectually, but Arthur just plants his feet, feels his movement run along the bone until Merlin gasps in shocked pain and leans his head against Arthur’s chest. The knife buries itself in another inch.

“ _Bastard_ ,” Merlin whispers.

Blood wells sluggishly from the puncture where the blade disappears, red rivers flowing across snow. It’s a curiously beautiful sight and Arthur’s struck by an acute wave of _affection_ that nearly doubles him over and knocks the breath from his lungs. It’s painful and leaves him shaking and sick inside like a new leaf buffeted by a storm, but he knows he’s made the right decision, the only decision fate has left to them; if Merlin will hurt it will be by the fault of no one but Arthur’s hand.

Merlin’s crying, quiet and frustrated, with his face screwed up and pinched closed. Arthur tilts the knife down, the sharp blade hewing muscle, just a little twitch of his wrist and the vague hint of moisture becomes a trickle, a trail that runs down his chin and drips onto his chest and disappears into the wet already smeared into his being.

“Is this-,” Merlin pants, swallows, _breathes_ and isn’t that fascinating? The rise and fall of his chest goes on and on and on, mathematics of breathe and the knife parting him coming to a conclusion that exists within the same reality, macabre addition.

“Enough.” 

Uther’s voice breaks through his trance. Arthur frowns and doesn’t bother to turn, looks at him over the rise of his shoulder.

“He has been coddled enough,” he clarifies, pacing a circle around Merlin’s form. Arthur tracks his movement, like he’s watching a particularly succulent stag dip its head to taste clear water. Merlin, he notices when his gaze flicks back, is watching him, mouth tight and eyes bright and unreadable.

Uther tips a nods to his guard and he scurries away.

“You have secrets, sorcerer,” he says, still circling, beside him now, present in their peripheral. “Will you tell them?”

The guard returns with a great iron mallet, stuck into a haft of wood, along with a steel wedge.

“Lay him flat,” Uther says. “There, by that tie.” He gestures with a nod of his head to an area of floor cleared of dirty straw, about the size of a man. A scattering of ties, iron stakes with flared heads stuck deep into the stone, frame it. Arthur feels his lips purse, hand flexing on the knife, but he pulls it out with a flick of his wrist and Merlin stumbles into the space when he shoves him harshly forward, gasping from the abrupt exodus and fresh well of blood.

“On his back,” Uther clarifies and down he goes, limbs shaking into graceless position. He’s a broken swan, adolescent and clumsy.

“What--” Merlin swallows a cry, interrupted when Arthur wrenches his hands above his head by their cuffs, jarring his injured fingers.

“You do not need the use of your legs to enumerate your lies,” Uther replies to his cut-off question. Merlin’s eyes flash.

“No--”

“Secure him,” Uther interrupts, without care. “Like so,” and his guard kneels down, snapping open Merlin’s cuffs and tossing them carelessly away, and shows Arthur how to wrap a length of rope about his wrists and about the stakes so that he cannot twist away.

“Arthur,” Merlin hisses, eyes wild. His speech is rapid, low and hurried, determined to say his piece. “I have saved your life more times then you will ever know, don’t do this, don’t become like him, you’re better then this--”

The guttural howl of his cry echoes against the stone when Uther grinds the heel of his boot into the wound Arthur punctured into his skin.

“You were educated in letters, were you not,” Uther asks, calm and easy above him as he steps away and gives Merlin a moment to gather himself. “Perhaps you will reconsider when we take your tongue as well as the price for your lies.”

“Hand’s broke,” he slurs in incredulous reply, an hysterical laugh bubbling out of his coated throat. “Can’t write.”

“You have another,” Uther replies, unfazed. “Ready his leg. Set it out like so and keep the salts ready. He will not escape from his duty to me.”

“What will you have me do,” Arthur asks from his inward distance.

“Erwin,” ah, that is the guard’s name. “Will steady the wedge over the bone of his shin and the weight will strike it until it shatters and breaks.”

Erwin lays his leg out as if readying a length of wood. Merlin tries to twist away, to kick him, but Arthur reaches out and steadies him with a hand over him, leaning his weight into it, gentling. The guard lashes it to the other tie, a length of rope wrapping round and round the skinny length of his ankle, just under where his tattered pants reach.

“Arthur, Arthur, please stop him, stop him damn you, Arthur, please,” Merlin’s voice is a stream of inarticulate babble in his ear, voice low and pleading, the dam of his calm breaking free with the terminal nature of his fate. There’s a well of panic layered beneath, curling his words into each other like the folds of a drawn curtain.

“You can end this simply by giving us what we want, sorcerer. Surely your compatriots cannot demand such loyalty from you.”

Merlin’s eyes barely flick up long enough to glance at the sound of Uther’s voice, before he returns to earnestly pleading with Arthur. Erwin is ignored, as his boredom has given his due.

“ _Arthur, this is beneath you_ ,” Merlin hisses.

“It it not,” Arthur replies simply and stands, taking the haft of the heavy mallet in his hand.

The wedge rests above the meat of his shin, held in Erwin’s invisible hands. Merlin snarls, twisting, body long and thin and trapped like an insect in cooling amber. From his mouth spews a string of guttural words, harsh and glittering, but ultimately meaningless. For a moment his eyes glow a flickering, sickly yellow, and then it crests and sinks back into blue.

Uther tips his face with the tip of his boot, disgust writ plain on his features.

“Vile spells,” he says. “Your words are useless. Arthur, my boy, if you would.”

The bone makes a horrid crack when it breaks. The wedge is no sword and it takes three swings of the great mallet to strike it with enough force to break it clear. With each strike it drives deeper; on the first Merlin howls and his entire body goes taut, the tendons of his neck standing out like corded rope jutting from the thin sweep of his neck and casting bruised shadows into his skin. He’s not pleading any longer; words seem to have deserted him. The shock of the wedge and mallet impacting bone runs up Arthur’s arms and straight to his head, settling in a painful ache between his eyes. Bees buzz incessantly somewhere near, warping sound.

On the second strike his flesh gives with a muffled thump, cracking like brittle firewood. Merlin is hyperventilating, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he keens in his throat on every exhale, sounding a raspy grunt when he breathes in.

The third shatters the bone and sinks the wedge in deep, pressuring a blunt gash in his skin that fountains thick blood. It splatters against the stone, the mallet, Arthur’s boots and legs of his pants and all up the front of his tunic. A pattern of dots sprays against his cheek and across his nose and his mouth. It’s feverishly hot and his tongue darts out of its on accord to wash it away. Copper floods his senses, melting into his tongue, a taste of Merlin, a piece of him he’s never before given up. Arthur’s fingers slip over the haft of the mallet and he shudders.

Merlin’s spitting blood; he’s injured himself with his teeth, his tongue or his cheek punctured. The bone of his shin juts horrifically from his flesh, bent upwards and through at an extreme angle. Merlin struggles to tilt his head up enough to look at it, eyes wide and alien, sunk in red rimmed facets. His skin is washed in an unhealthy green hue.

The wedge squelches noisily when Arthur bends to remove it, gripping it tight with the tips of his fingers and wrenching on it. Merlin gut heaves and spasms and he turns his head and vomits onto the stone, a thin liquid of white bile. He hasn’t been fed.

For a long moment, Arthur looses his sense of time. Merlin’s leg is wrapped in cloth, twisted until the blood leaking from his rent flesh is a trickle, but Arthur cannot remember how it got that way or whose hands cradled him as it was done. Every second between this scene and his last is warped and liquid, punctuated by the sound of sickened sobbing. He thinks, at some point, Merlin passes out, has the strange vividness that dreams sometimes have of a memory, the blue of Merlin’s eyes shuttering in a sweep of black and the purple and red bruise of his lids, but someone must have woken him, perhaps the same someone who wound the tourniquet about his leg so he would not empty his veins of their life too quickly.

“It’s not, can’t, stop them,” he slurs, demanding still in dizzying pain, tongue tripping over the words and mangling them so that they are barely intelligible. Arthur’s fingers dance over the dripping flesh his actions have exposed to the light, a part of Merlin that has never tasted air or the world outside of Merlin’s body.

Merlin moans and shudders, starts and doesn’t stop. His limbs tremor and his eyes roam and Arthur gently frees his mangled leg from the rope that lashes it into place. The world sways, and he is aware in a dim way that his father is speaking, monologuing certainly on Merlin’s imagined betrayals. Arthur knows he did not, knows he never aimed a dagger at his kingdom, he whispered magic and rose above the corruption, stayed shining and pure, like the red he bleeds. All his little lies piled up, obscured what he did, but with this one truth, they’re coming clear the longer Arthur studies them, fits them up against his own memories and finds them greater then his transgressions. His father remains in ignorance, willfully blind to the truth.

He wanted to take care of Merlin, lift him from the dirt, the cold ground, away from the mess he’s found himself in, wallowing in blood like he’s playing in it. Merlin never did know how to keep himself out of trouble, and it was far too cold out to dip himself in a lake.

So it was that Arthur fit his arms under him and rose with him, moving him again back to where he started. Merlin looks too helpless sprawled out on the cold ground as he is, he should stand proud. Arthur is proud of him and his father will want Arthur to hurt Merlin again.

Merlin cannot stand on his own and so Arthur takes him back to the hook, where he can stretch tall and high, stretch out in stunning obeisance to the sky. Uther follows him, Erwin watches him, they are talking, chatting, chattering, meaningless beasts. It is unfortunate that Merlin did not keep the chains, but Arthur has always been resourceful.

He is long when fully unfurled, long and pale and broken and mesmerizing in his destruction and Arthur rarely lets himself look, but today of all days he is allowing indulgence.

The skin of his wrist gives easily to the point of the rusted hook, one then the other swallowing the iron and spitting it out the other side. His head lolls on his neck; he’s only half conscious as his skin is punctured and invaded even as his fingers twitch helplessly, and tiny whimpers escape his throat. They let him go and he sags, his hale leg collapsing beneath him, boneless and lethargic. His entire weight is taken by the bones and flesh of his hands. A fine tremor runs from his shoulder to the tips of his mutilated fingers. His body sways and dangles as he tries sluggishly to get his footing and his broken leg twists and tears flesh and skin every time his hip shifts.

He’s moaning, moaning long and low like they’re in another place, another time, where Merlin’s arcing under him and their limbs are tangled together and Arthur can’t get enough of hearing those soft little noises cresting and breaking with the languid movement of their bodies.

Arthur’s mouth goes dry and he leans back to watch Merlin, watch him sway like a buffeted willow.

Uther steps forward, mistaking his hesitance for irreverence, for an inability to service his duty. His knife flashes, a silver arc and Merlin’s left ear hews from where it was attached, falls to the dirt with a wet sound.

That isn’t right, his father shouldn’t be touching Merlin, he has no claim to him, Merlin is _Arthur_ ’s, his alone. His father does not ache for Merlin’s touch, he does not bare himself to him with words and gestures, does not take him under the cloak of night, deep into his body. Does not work or fight or simply _live_ with him.

His father bleeds the same red as Merlin does. Arthur is vaguely fascinated by this, their differences to be marked. It is a tiny betrayal. His body drops and reveals Erwin, mouth open on a scream.

“Be quiet,” Arthur snaps and his mouth snaps shut, obeying his prince.

He falls with a gaping smile slashed into his throat.

Once upon a time, when Arthur was young and small, Uther took him to his first execution. It had been a beheading, a man had discovered his wares missing from his locked and hidden chest and the missing articles had been found in this man’s rooms, but this man had not left his house, nor entertained guests in a fortnight and the wares missing for only a single week.

His head had rolled, turned over and over itself, newly open and round. Morgana, for she had been brought as well, inseparable as they had been, had whispered, sworn, hurried and excited, in that way that young children have of taking disgusting things in stride, that she’d seen him blink.

Arthur had asked his father if the man could have healed himself if sorcery hadn’t been banned (he never question how the man had originally gotten around the ban. At six it had been a wall that his father had settled over the kingdom. At eight his father had informed him succinctly that that too was treason and Arthur had learned to shut his mouth.) if the man could have healed himself.

Uther’s expression had gone tight and cold and he had not said no.

There is a point when lost blood is too much. The point when the red inside is less than the red outside. There is a point when pain can lessen that time, where it can kill a man. His father hit that point far quicker then Merlin, stolid Merlin has and Erwin took even less time. No matter; they have served their reminder.

Arthur’s hands know death and Merlin is not responding any longer and they will live their happily ever after.

“Mend yourself,” Arthur commands, quiet into his ear.

“I-I don’t,” Merlin stutters, eyes roaming. He sways slowly, back and forth, back and forth, still dangling from the flesh of his wrists.

“Mend yourself,” Arthur repeats.

“I won’t--”

“Please,” Arthur says. Sometimes his manservant needs silly things to obey the orders given him.

“... _Gaius_ ,” he breathes.

“No,” Arthur denies, stern and unyielding, tilting Merlin’s face towards him. “Tell me your words, the ones that will mend your flesh.”

Merlin would forget his own head if left to his own devices.

“The word, Merlin,” he coaxes, endlessly patient. “Tell me the word,” and, “Mend yourself.”

Merlin murmurs something and it is that strange and guttural gibberish he was spewing earlier.

“Yes,” Arthur says in satisfaction. “That exactly. Say it again.”

He does and this time Arthur hears it, lets it sink into the muscles of his tongue until he’s repeating it as well, both of them speaking the strange language, a secret that only they are privy to.

Time passes, whispers coaxed out and eventually Merlin’s eyes flicker, flicker until finally they hold a steady gold. His breath sighs from his lips and the words take on new intent, shifting syllables alive with meaning and free agency. They wrap around Merlin’s body, caressing and it’s alright, it’s alright because this is him, this is a part of himself and it’s alright, it is allowed to touch and to claim.

Slowly, it knits him whole.

There is a tightness about his bruised eyes, a hardness that Arthur does not see often; grim and serious, though his eyes themselves drift soft and unfocused.

“Leg,” he mutters. “Leg.”

Arthur looks and frowns. The blood slows and stops, stays inside him where it belongs, but the flesh does not knit, not like the gashes across his chest and his gut who are little more then gnarled scratches, now. Its refusal to heal is a refusal of Arthur’s will. He reaches out to touch it and Merlin looks at it, then looks away, dismissing it to focus his wandering attention on the sprawling walls.

“It doesn’t belong to me,” he says slowly, vowels round and consonants soft against his tongue. “The magic denies it.”

Arthur scowls and readies his knife and cuts, slicing through the last of clinging skin and muscle.

Merlin makes a strangled noise and his eyes roll back in his head, healing words trickling into silence, gold sinking into his skin and Arthur stretches around him, reaches into the rich pocket of Erwin’s tunic, cooling to his touch and removes the smelling salts. He waves them under Merlin’s nose.

“Come back to me,” he commands and Merlin’s eyes open, brilliant and blue and hazy with pain and the last of his burden falls away with the pressure of the blade.

“Heal Merlin,” he says and Merlin moans, low and unceasing.

“ _Heal_ Merlin,” Arthur repeats, incessantly, loudly, speaking over Merlin and eventually the moan dissolves back into words, spoken in haste and garbled, but his eyes flare gold once more and the blood stop falling. With a careful tug, the tourniquet falls away and no new blood runs to join the rest sinking to nourish the dirt with Merlin’s life. Merlin trails off into a sob, limbs twitching to curl in on themselves and Arthur sways. Somewhere, distantly, bells toll.

The last thing he hears before he sinks into blackness is Morgana’s strangled scream.

\---

In the weeks that follow as Merlin heals, a few things come undeniably clear.

First is that Merlin is terrible at writing with his left hand. Gaius re-breaks the digits on his right, and they heal straight and true, but they ache deep down where his magic remembers their ruin. He cannot hold a pen without them cramping, curling into a claw that he has to coax into release and his wrists often pain him when the weather is bad. The scars of his gashes, stitched and healed, do in fact pull and bother him when he stretches, the one beneath his collarbone worst of all, and he never does get used to the sight of himself in the mirror, lopsided, leaning to the left, without his second ear to balance him. His hearing is, thankfully, mostly unaffected, acoustics flat but with only a little loss of sensitivity. His leg seems to heal well enough, but within a week he comes down with a fever, infection settling in deep. It is well that it happened before Merlin attempted to walk in earnest, Gaius said. Slivers of bone had broken off and embedded themselves into the surrounding muscle and a good three inches of seemingly hale flesh had wrapped around helplessly fractured bone that needed to be removed. Without the help of his magic it would take months to recover; in this new world where Uther’s threat does not hang over his head in the shape of an axe, it takes mere weeks of rest and intense casting.

And that brings up the second.

Arthur’s time in the dungeons has changed him. He speaks slowly, in an unhurried and steady manner no matter the urgency of his business. He takes to being king, but sometimes his words twist themselves into knots, riddles that no man seems privy to, and it is not a well thing.

He comes to Gaius’ chambers where Merlin is resting (fitfully, he draws back nearly into the wall when Arthur enters the room), to show him, proud of himself like a child with a treasured drawing, the broken form of a battered bird.

The third is that Merlin learns, to his despair, that there really are no depths Arthur can sink to that he will not forgive to tamp out the light of keen-edged and bitter love that Merlin has for him.

Merlin reaches for Arthur and takes him in his hand (shaking, sweating and pale), one on either side of his head, the heels nestling into the hollow of his temples. Arthur goes to his knees beside his bed with reverence in his gaze (Merlin shudders and reminds himself to breathe). Merlin speaks, undeniable and Arthur’s eyes glaze, filmy and indistinct.

Fourth is that it was Uther who harmed Merlin, Uther who battered and broke him, ripped from him the health of his youth and the expression of his innocence. Arthur came in on the sight of the guard, Erwin, with a knife poised over Uther’s back, flashed down and in, a grievance with family who was poured like water over an oil fire and Arthur opened his throat, but his father was dead and Merlin lay bleeding at his feet. He saved Merlin, begging his magic out from inside him, and from there Morgana and Gwen found them, curled and unconscious.

Arthur fancies himself a hero, but Merlin flinches from his touch, snaps at him in surly anger and Arthur backs away, hurt in his eyes as he is forced to stand on the sidelines and watch his friend struggle with the prosthetic and crutch he receives.

It does not stop Arthur from carving him a new set; beautiful and smooth where his first had been rough hewn and ill-made. It sweeps down in the shape of a true leg, tapers at the ankle and flares wide at the base, worked into the dips and planes of a foot. Each toe is individually wrought. The cane is little different, elegant and winking with precious jewels and gilt in gold.

Merlin clenches his teeth and learns them, loves them, even, but he will never forget, he will never, he will never.

And then Gaius takes him by the arm, concerned and kind and situates him into a worn chair, muttering and fussing, and he will never forget, he will never, and Gaius’ hand looms large in his vision, eclipsing the bright flash of his eyes, flaring briefly yellow before his mind goes blank.

The world moves forward in a blur before them. Life is different and new with Arthur as king, but the knights (and there is no doubt that they are his knight, _Arthur’s_ knights) trickle in and enemies beat at their doors and adventure sets its claws into them and pulls them out of the castle, into the sharp, bright edges of the world. Gaius keeps another secret piled with other bones of all that he has forgotten. Morgana goes cold and strange and speaks less and less to anyone and eventually she simply disappears from the within the castle’s walls. Rumor tells of a woman who takes her, blond and powerful and obviously Morgause, but they find neither of them. Gwen follows a few months after, with Lancelot in tow. Arthur is devastated, but she too had been skittish and strange and in the end he is made to see the wisdom of her decision.

They have grown, Arthur and Merlin have, grown and lost and gained. Deaths surround them, but the lives stay just as strong and they continue without them. If Arthur’s fingers sometimes trace with particular longing over a favored hunting knife and if Merlin sometimes is skittish in his bed, arching away from his questing caress, they do not notice overmuch.

Until tales of Morgana reach their ears, the druids and Morgause united under her banner. It would be laughable; the druids, now welcome at court and within Camelot, persist in their stolid pacificity, except that the armies of kingdoms also join them; the bereft and abused, strange men made immortal. It was they who stole from under the noses of the druids loyal to Camelot the Cup and it is these men who taste its benefits.

When Morgana enters the walls of the castle, smiling, cold and mad, she drags in destruction with her.

“Arthur,” she says. “Dear Arthur, betrayer and tormentor. I still wake to see the blood on your hands. Do you?”


End file.
